Avi Issacharoff
Ynet News, Aug. 11, 2022
“Gaza rulers “smell blood” in the West Bank, where the weakened PA is embroiled in corruption and internal battles over who will be Abbas’ successor.”
On Tuesday morning, shortly after three Palestinians were killed in a counterterrorism operation in the West Bank city of Nablus, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, Hazem Qassem, said, “it is clear that we are in a new phase of the conflict with the occupation, the main goal of which is taking the fight to the West Bank.”
This statement is not particularly surprising. It is no secret that Hamas has been attempting for quite some time to incite the Palestinians in the West Bank to carry out terror attacks against Israeli targets.
What is more surprising is the fact that a little over a day after the ceasefire between Israel and the Islamic Jihad in Gaza was brokered by Egypt, Qassem refrained from using the word “Gaza” in his long statement about vowing to continue the fight of “the resistance”.
The general approach Hamas has adopted recently is very similar to the segregation policy Israel imposed on Gaza over a decade ago – only in reverse. In other words, Hamas wants to maintain peace in the Palestinian enclave, while in the West Bank the goal is to generate as much tension and violence as possible, which they believe will weaken the Palestinian Authority – as part of its preparations for “the day after” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. SOURCE